The craze for gambling bids fair to make of this age a democratic rival to the oligarchic dicers of the Restoration and late Hanoverian eras. The man on the dole, who stakes the price of his family's meals upon the heels of a horse or the pads of a dog, is, if anything, more disgracefully reckless that the noble witling who ventured his ancestral acres upon the green tables of White's. The latter at least played with his own. The atmosphere of the bookmaker's office disregards all sanctuaries, as the following episode, with a rather wry humour, exemplifies. We are accustomed to read "tips" on gates, walls and pavements, in telephone books and public directories, and on the fly-leaves of library books. It does not stop there. The pastor of a certain parish delivered himself thus from the pulpit a few days ago: - "I have to request that worshippers will refrain from giving the names of possible winners by writing them in the prayer books, which are church property. Apart from the grave indecorousness of the procedure, it has occasioned no little loss of money among parishioners."
The Irish Times, October 30th, 1930.